But the company gave little indication of how it sees the property market developing over the next few months, prompting concern among some analysts. Regional shopping centres, which have seen steady rent rises, make up almost 90% percent of Liberty's £4.5 billion ($7.3 billion) property portfolio and the firm is seen as a barometer of UK retailers' performance. But consumer confidence has started to fall and analysts are concerned what this might for Liberty.

Liberty, one of the newest entrants into the FTSE 100 index, said pre-tax profits before exceptionals for the year ended December 31, increased to £86.6 million $140 million) from £79.5 million ($128.6 million) in 2001. The increase was in line with the expectations of analysts. Liberty's share price fell by 7% in the last week of January, while the FTSE property sector fell by some 5% in the same period. Since then the company has recouped most of its losses and has outperformed the sector by 3% to dated.

Chairman Donny Gordon also took the opportunity to criticise a government study of corporate governance, published last month and aimed at preventing an Enron-style scandal. The report, written by former banker Derek Higgs, proposed that firms boost the number of independent directors and put forward a test to gauge their independence, and repeated calls to split the roles of chairman and chief executive.

Gordon said: "I have regretfully come to the conclusion that the bulk of the...recommendations, which surprisingly appear to give no primacy to business judgement, are unrealistic, impractical and likely to be seriously detrimental if fully adopted."

Some market insiders have singled Gordon out for particular criticism for running the company as if it were private instead of publicly traded. The family owns 20% of the shares and two of Liberty's non-executive directors are related to him and so less likely to be truly independent. This means if the Higgs report proposals are implemented by government major changes would have to be implemented on the Liberty board and company structure.

But defenders say the Liberty case is not clear-cut. A company can probably get by without having many truly independent non-executive directors as long as it performs well as Liberty has.